


Kate's Soliloquy

by AiraKay, Nara



Category: Taming of the Shrew - Shakespeare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-16
Updated: 2012-09-16
Packaged: 2017-11-14 08:28:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AiraKay/pseuds/AiraKay, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nara/pseuds/Nara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate speaks to the audience just before they go to Bianca's wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kate's Soliloquy

Forsooth, Hortensio speaks right.

For my husband is crazed,

So much that he wishes me tamed.

'Tis a dilemma I face,

A choice I must make,

To disagree, act "curst",

Would mean a miserable existence,

Starved, humiliated.

Or to agree, become "tame",

Submit my will to my husband, "my lord",

And be kept away from the shadows of shame,

To be well dressed and well fed,

But never again be a wild Kate, a wildcat.

He has taken away my bite,

Without which I can no longer defend nor attack.

Am I fated to become a helpless gentlewoman,

Dependant on my lord for survival?

Once I had scorned such a fate,

But now it seems my only option.

He has embarrassed me before my family, the world,

And has starved me of meat and sleep.

I play the part of his fool, his puppet.

I tire of this treatment,

As though I am less than a beggar.

There is only one option,

I have made my choice,

I know what I must do.

**Author's Note:**

> This soliloquy is from Kate's perspective. She confides this to the audience in between Hortensio saying, "Say as he says, or we shall never go" (4.5.13), and Kate's following lines. 
> 
> Kate's Soliloquy is of her final argument with herself, before the decision to agree, on what to do, argue and be Kate the curst, the shrew, or succumb to being the "perfect wife". In the soliloquy, Kate makes her decision, and the play continues with her being, more or less, reinvented, no longer a shrew.


End file.
